5th September 1945
Pages from 'PUNCH'

The caption reads

TOUJOURS L'AUDACE

["We should be courageous enough to apologize to the Chinese..." - A Japanese general.]

The Second Sino-Japanese War

From Wikipedia:

The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from 1937 to 1945, as part of World War II. In China, the war is called the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. This total war between China and the Empire of Japan is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia, although some scholars consider the European War and the Pacific War to be entirely separate, albeit concurrent. It was the largest Asian war in the 20th century and has been described as 'the Asian Holocaust', in reference to the scale of Imperial Japan's war crimes against Chinese civilians. After the Japanese attacks on Malaya and Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war merged with other conflicts which are generally categorized under the China Burma India Theater of World War II.

Japanese apologies

From Wikipedia:

At the end of the Pacific Theater of World War II, the Imperial Japanese government accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. In 1945, the unconditional surrender of the Empire of Japan was formally confirmed aboard the Allied battleship, USS Missouri (BB-63). Once the formal documents were signed, General Douglas MacArthur, representing the Allies, was named the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan.

Emperor Hirohito let it be known to General MacArthur that he was prepared to apologize formally to General MacArthur for Japan's actions during World War II—including an apology for the 7th December 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor.

In one version of the formal apology, Emperor Hirohito, the Japanese monarch, is reported to have said to General MacArthur: 'I come before you to offer myself to the judgment of the powers you represent, as one to bear sole responsibility for every political and military decision made and action taken by my people in the conduct of the war.'

In a second version of the formal apology, Patrick Lennox Tierney claims that he was an eyewitness when the Emperor came to the Allied Supreme Commander's headquarters to present this apology. Tierney was in his office on the fifth floor of the Dai-Ichi Insurance Building in Tokyo. This was the same floor where MacArthur's suite was situated. Tierney reported that when the emperor arrived, MacArthur refused to admit him or acknowledge him, and the pivotal moment passed.

Many years later, Tierney made an effort to explain his understanding of the significance of what he claimed he had personally witnessed: 'Apology is a very important thing in Japan. ... It was the rudest, crudest, most uncalled for thing I have ever witnessed in my life.' Whether true or not—issues which might have been addressed were allowed to remain open, and unanticipated consequences have unfolded across the decades since then.

Some in Japan have asserted that what is being demanded is that the Japanese Prime Minister or even the Emperor himself perform dogeza, in which an individual kneels and bows his head to the ground—a high form of apology in East Asian societies that Japan appears unwilling to do. Some point to an act by West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, who knelt at a monument to the Jewish victims of the Warsaw Ghetto, in 1970, as an example of a powerful and effective act of apology and reconciliation similar to dogeza.

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